Without permission
The Guardian published Shriver’s talk (uh oh will they get in trouble now?).
I’m afraid the bramble of thorny issues that cluster around “identity politics” has got all too interesting, particularly for people pursuing the occupation I share with many gathered in this hall: fiction writing. Taken to their logical conclusion, ideologies recently come into vogue challenge our right to write fiction at all…
…
The author of Who Owns Culture? Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law, Susan Scafidi, a law professor at Fordham University who for the record is white, defines cultural appropriation as “taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else’s culture without permission. This can include unauthorised use of another culture’s dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious symbols, etc.”
Hang on – what does that mean, “without permission”? It doesn’t mean anything, because how on earth does anyone know whom to ask for “permission” of that kind? Who is in a position to give such “permission”? No one. The fact that Scafidi is a law professor makes that phrase especially absurd. If there’s anything lawyers hate it’s a dangling meaningless requirement like that. (That’s me appropriating the experience of lawyers. I don’t actually know that that’s their top hate. I made that up.)
What does “unauthorised use” mean there? Again, nothing, because how can it? Authorised by whom? Who has the job of authorising people to use “another culture’s cuisine”? Absolutely no one has that job, and the claim is grotesque. We don’t need authorisation or permission to go to a Thai or Ethiopian or Brazilian restaurant to eat some fabulous interesting food. We don’t need authorisation or permission to listen to foreign music (and nearly all music is foreign to all of us, because all cultures have music) or wear foreign clothes or dance foreign dances. That claim is ridiculous and hideously xenophobic, though it doesn’t intend the latter. People in Delhi don’t need my permission to eat McDonald’s french fries, and I don’t need theirs to eat chole masala.
We get closer by sharing.
I do think people get to look askance at appropriation of their religious stuff, because that’s a different kind of thing. There are probably other kinds I’d agree should be done with care and tact if at all. But a sweeping taboo like the one from Susan Scafidi? Forget it.
Would that fall under patent, copyright, or trademark law? Or would we have to make new laws? I presume that patents require specific filings.
D’oh! Does this mean we’re not getting the taco trucks? Please tell me we still get the taco trucks.
Um, these people do realize that human history would probably still be somewhere in the Paleolithic if ideas never spread?
It’s appropriation when you take something from others and use it for self-aggrandizement or to make money that doesn’t benefit the source.
Otherwise we call it “sharing.”
To go all futurist or something, you can’t create the monoculture (thus removing the category of Other) without appropriation, so they can go suck it…
Even if you self-aggrandize, or fail to benefit the source, that’s not appropriation, because there’s no such thing as appropriation when it comes to abstract ideas. Appropriation is the taking of something that deprives the original owner of its use. My use of the cuisine, music, or even religious imagery of another culture deprives no one of anything.
It’s wrong to repurpose things from a people’s culture to belittle them. But it’s the belittling that’s wrong, not the repurposing. Yet somehow a very vocal portion of the left has gotten it into their head that it’s the repurposing that’s the issue, so now multiculturalism is under attack from left and right. But apparently it’ll be OK if the segregationists win, since there’ll be no more appropriation.
Cultural appropriation is an interesting one. I know in the US the use of native peoples traditional dress can be a sore point. Using Plains Indians head dress as short hand for all tribes for instance, not to mention using elements of costume inappropriately and/or for commercial gain.
Similarly in NZ there have been issues with the commercial use especially of certain traditional Maori dance/song (the Kamate Haka is an excellent eg) or design motifs without permission. It’s a fair point to consider that in these cases there is a tribal organisation that is empowered to discuss use and licensing. Some things are just utterly insensitive to an entire culture. For example, the printing of the likeness of Maori notables heads onto souvenir tea towels. The head is sacred to Maori (and most polynesians). To use the likeness of the head of a respected person to dry dishes and wipe benches – crikey! Similarly plastic or soap Tiki and making dross out of Pounamu.
In general most Maori tribes seem very happy to share and educate at a personal use level and there is an inevitable bleed of concepts into general usage.
Conflict arises in examples like those discussed in the OP where there is an attempt to exclude a person of a different culture from even attempting to interpret or use general ‘public’ elements of culture. i say go for it in most cases. Roundly criticise and debate when people do a bad or insensitive job. I’m not about to attack Indian (as in India), African or Maori people (for example) for writing music, fiction, or designing clothes that draw on English or Scottish themes.
StlSin @ 5, our posts crossed. This is not necessarily a left vs right argument in all cases. When you use the music or design motif, or significant material of a culture in an inappropriate or disrespectful way, or even an appropriate way (unlikely) for commercial use without authorisation, you may in fact cause harm and disadvantage.
Take Ka Mate for instance. Because that was starting to get used inappropriately commercial users all over the world an Act of parliament was passed to control it’s appropriate use [1]. Some cultures, such as Maori value mana [2] very very highly. The inappropriate use of culturally significant performance, ritual or material reduces both individual and cultural mana.
Tourism and trade is critically important in New Zealand and many Maori tribes are deeply engaged in these activities. They seek to provide high quality and culturally respectful ventures that enhance tribal mana and represent their culture in a good light. Setting up a competing commercial venture deprives the tribe of income that it can use to raise the standard of living of its members. If the competing activity is also of lower quality or misrepresents critical aspects of culture it may also devalue to activity itself. Pounamu (NZ jade) was all too frequently made into low value items, often overseas and thus caused both economic and cultural harm. By treaty settlement any and all pounamu now belongs to Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu [3].
Belittling is different again – and is also wrong.
On the other hand Maori have also been more than happy to share their love of good kai [4] with us.
PS: as one of New Zealand’s whiter (in upbringing and propensity to suffer sunburn) individuals, the irony in me representing this view and argument in this context is not lost on me.
[1] http://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/business/intellectual-property/haka-ka-mate-attribution-act-guidelines
[2] http://maoridictionary.co.nz/word/3424
[3] http://ngaitahu.iwi.nz/ngai-tahu/the-settlement/settlement-offer/cultural-redress/ownership-and-control/pounamu/
[4] https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=kai&client=firefox-b&biw=1477&bih=746&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiw-8ibkI7PAhVBw4MKHaAlA1oQ_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=+maori+kai
Damn, that was a good speech.
Excuse me; I have to quote big chunks of it.
“Anodyne drivel” is a good description of the literature we’d have if all writers shared the aesthetic of Abdul-Magied. Also of a lot of the wankery published at “Everyday Feminism” and its ilk.
I read Abdul-Magied’s objections to Shriver’s speech a couple of days ago. It was impossible to tell what Shriver actually said that upset her so–she made no attempt to engage Shriver’s ideas. She sure did make her sound like a big arrogant meanie, though, out to culturally plunder everybody else for the sake of those big bucks authors of literary fiction make.
I don’t know how much truth there is in this–seems a bit glib to me–but it’s worth thinking about.
@StISin
Segregationists are all about identity. Always have been.
I’ve grown more and more skeptical of the concept of appropriation as it seems to be getting weaponised by activist youth, but I temper my skepticism with the understanding that there actually is a phenomenon worth recognising and working against. Namely, when a powerful or majority culture straight-up steals a practice or an art form from a maligned or minority culture, without giving that culture any credit or allowing the practice to actually bring understanding between the two groups.
The touchstone example is rock and roll—a musical art form developed by and for African Americans was almost wholly taken up by white Americans, and has come to be seen as an almost exclusively white genre across the world, with little credit given to the culture from which the art form was taken…and, of course, little amelioration of the tensions between white and black people in the United States for all that art that was taken by white people from black people.
But, ultimately, cultures are made up of stories, and those stories cannot reasonably be said to *not* belong to anyone with the capacity to understand and interpret them. The answer to stopping the kind of erasure typified by the history of rock and roll is not to no-platform Elvis or Paul Simon or Led Zeppelin, but to acknowledge as a culture the sources of our stories, and use them as bridges to better understand one another.
France has to give me back Euro Disney Land then. And all the malls.
The thing about humans and human cultures is that 1) we are a species that is very fast to learn and very attuned to symbol systems that we 2) use to adapt. If something isn’t adaptive it doesn’t stick around, and the on-the-street meaning of “adaptive” changes with every adaptation.
So trying to claim that cultural “appropriation” happens without “permission” is just ridiculous. Humans are also 3) really good at being ass-hats.
Do I get really pissed off when I see a hearing student of ASL post a You Tube of himself signing (badly) a song? Yes I do. But I don’t call it cultural appropriation. I call it dumb, naive, silly, mortifying, idiotic. Do I get really pissed off when a someone says “no problemo”? Sort of. But I don’t call it cultural appropriation – I call it bad grammar, bad inflecting, b/c the word “problema” ends w/an a, even though is it masculine gender. I call it stupid English mono-lingual silliness. The Spanish Academy can go after them, not me.
I assume that Ms. Scafidi speaks and writes English. Oh, the irony.
(Long-time reader, first time poster. Be gentle.)
Any one complaining about cultural appropriation using English should immediately shut up!
The narrative is that it’s ok to appropriate from the “dominant culture” but not from “minority cultures”. This ironically tends to be very U.S. focused in its division of “whites” (dominant) and “people of color” (minority). So for example it’s bad to appropriate” Japanese culture (although most actual Japanese people don’t seem to have an issue with it) but fine to appropriate Ukrainian culture (although Ukraine is a poorer and less powerful country than Japan these days).
@ ^
https://youtu.be/Mzqn-bXTq0k?t=19
Seth – I don’t know that there is no credit given in rock ‘n’ roll. Initially, yes, it just sort of became practiced and performed by a lot of white performers, but I think that in most of the contexts I’ve seen in the past 30 years, there has been an acknowledgement, and sometimes strong acknowledgement, of the roots of rock ‘n’ roll. Every history of rock ‘n’ roll show that I ever watch has at least as many, if not more, of the early African-American performers than the white performers. This is an example of cultural appropriation, but we are beginning to recognize and acknowledge it.
Does this mean we should all quit listening to Elton John, the Beatles, Elvis? No. It just means we need to be aware of, and appreciative of, the source of all this material. I hold with the statement of Terence, a non-white playwright in Rome:
We must ask permission of the ‘Community Leaders.’ Whoever has the biggest bullhorn. Al Sharpton, Anjem Choudry, Martin Luther King’s greedy heirs etc. etc.
And presumably the academics who derive their income from working isolated cultural fiefdoms. This sort of blackmail seems eerily parallel to the deranged trans-language policing that we’ve seen creeping around.
iknklast: I’d say that there’s scholarly acknowledgement of rock’s roots, but that’s rarely conveyed to the broader audience. I’d have no problem with a movement to push (using social pressure and decent tactics only, please) big-name artists to periodically acknowledge their art-form’s roots. It wouldn’t kill the bands here: http://www.spin.com/2015/10/the-50-best-rock-bands-right-now/3/ to acknowledge that hey, you know, without Chuck Berry and his peers, their entire genre probably wouldn’t exist. (That list was particularly poignant, since of the 50 bands, 3 or 4 are mixed-race, and the rest are pretty much lily-white.)
Great examples, Rob and Seth, thank you.
Freemage, forgive me, but I travel in a lot of academic circles, and may be seeing something that I think has moved into the larger culture. I don’t know. I pick up a lot of it on PBS, where they definitely showcase the originators of rock ‘n’ roll in most of their shows. Other than that, my real contact is listening to the radio, which just announces the names of the stars, and not their inspirations. You may be right, and I may be seeing something as more widely spread than it really is, just because I travel in both academia and liberal circles. The non-liberal, mainstream culture I am surrounded by is predominantly C&W listeners.
I definitely agree that rock ‘n’ roll should acknowledge it’s roots in blues and jazz, and the African-American foundation. It’s something to be proud of, not to hide, and those early groups before the lily white folks took over are absolutely wonderful.
It doesn’t hurt that the Obamas have had a lot of the greats perform at the White House.
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